the 16th week

Jordan "Stupid Farmer" Bullard

Monday. I spent the morning in the Hilltop with Amanda Hoos, and then I went to The Anchor and worked on my Romans homework. When I got back, Kyle and I went to the library to work on our Gospel of Mark paper. We ate dinner in the dining hall, and then Klink and I studied for our Geology test tomorrow.

Tuesday. I went to The Anchor this morning instead of going to class. Jessie and I studied for our Geology test, ate lunch, and then took the test. I think I did well. I ate lunch with Ams and Mikaela, hung out in the Hilltop for a while, and then led Devos. I sucked balls. It happens. It was weird, because I knew the material and could articulate it well, but when it came to the presentation, I flopped. I was scatterbrained, unable to focus. “You’re too depressing when you preach,” Kyle said. I need to be more uplifting. Sometimes we have bad moments. It’s an assault on my pride, and it hurts. Maybe God is teaching me a lesson.

Wednesday. I picked up Faikham from her class at U.C.; “I made a bunch of new friends, and they’re music majors!” I visited Mandy at IT and spent the afternoon writing my Geology paper before going to dinner with Gambill. Deshay, Katie M., and I hung out for a while in the Hilltop. I spent the evening in the café with David, keeping Sarah G. and Julie B. company. Lots of people told me last night’s devo was amazing. My only question: How? One of the guys on my floor told me, “Your devo was my favorite from the whole year.” I couldn’t believe it: I was scatterbrained, disoriented, a fumbling fool. But the power in the presentation isn’t the presentation but God. I prayed that God would bless devos and speak through me. I expected the answer to be a well-crafted, polished, eloquent presentation. God answered my prayer, but He did so in His own way. There’s a lesson here indeed: I mustn’t trust in my own abilities. Rather, I must confess my abilities to be nothing, and rely not on myself but upon God using a foolish vessel like me.

Thursday. I picked up coffee for Mandy and me before Romans, and after Geology Mandy and I sat out on the Hill talking until 7:00 when Jobst and I went to The Anchor. Mandy will make some guy VERY happy one day, but that guy will not be me. She accidentally told me she loved me—nothing to read into—and it was hilarious.

Dad’s 47^th Birthday. After lunch at The Anchor I headed to Mom & Dad’s, and Aunt Teri and Ams joined the three of us for dinner at the Burger Trolley in Carlisle, and then we walked around a nearby park. I headed back to Cincinnati, and Julie B., Brock, Corie, Sarah G., David and I went to Highlands in Clifton to celebrate Julie’s birthday. My five shots didn’t hit me until I got home. My fortune cookie (they sell them in a jar) told me my charm would bring a special someone into my life. Buzzed, I ranted and raved about my thoughts on dating, and Julie told me, “More boys need to be like you.”

Saturday. I spent the afternoon packing up my room back home for the move into the Lehman House, and then I returned to C.C.U. Security unlocked the Oratorium for me, and I practiced tomorrow’s sermon—Musar: Fatherly Discipline—several times. Kyle and I went shopping for tomorrow’s dinner (steak and potatoes!) and then after dinner at The Anchor, Faikham and I went to Target, where I got two bedside tables for my room in the Lehman House. We will be there in a week! Faikham and I went dumpster diving, and I ripped my shorts. Kyle and I spent the evening working on his Gospel of Mark term paper.

Sunday. Stupid Farmer, Kyle and I went to Kyle’s church up past Dayton where I preached my sermon. They loved it, and they want me to come back soon. One woman told me, “You’d better become a preacher, because you’ve got a gift for it!” Another said, “I can hear some Baptist in you, some good Southern Baptist!” Kyle and I joined Rick for dinner at Wendy’s, where I toppled out of my chair to their applause of laughter. I hammered out my Gospel of Mark paper back at C.C.U. I went to the Hilltop patio and Mandy was there. She asked me if I liked her. I was shocked, said, “I used to.” She asked if I still did. I said No. And then she said, “Good.” 3^rd South had our steak dinner in the Hale Conference Center, and it was great. Bethany H. and I went to Meier’s. 

stressing out much?

We were supposed to move into the house on May 1^st, but there have been some problems, and so our move-in date has been postponed. This sucks for several reasons. First, May 1^st is the only day that we can move stuff from Dayton down to Cincinnati; so the postponed move-in date, even if by a mere 24 hours, means that we’ll start paying rent without actually being able to move in with our stuff. Also, this means that I will maybe have to stay in the dormitory for another week—which sucks because I’ve packed everything up, including clothes, and would have to unpack and such of that nature. Also, we have furniture that can come only on Sunday, which means if we can’t move in yet, then we’ll have to wait about a month to get that furniture. Basically, we oriented everything around the move-in date of May 1^st, and now that it’s falling through, we have to reorient everything and formulate new plans. But such is life.

 

I’m also irritated that out of the three people moving in, I’m the only one getting things together. I’m the only one signing the lease, I’m the only one making the phone calls for utilities, I’m the only one getting yelled at when things aren’t working out right. If everyone is paying the same amount of rent, doesn’t it make sense that responsibilities should be divided? I’m stressing out over both these facts (the move-in date being postponed and all the difficulties because of it, coupled with the whole weight of the ordeal being placed upon my shoulders), and I’m also stressing because one of the roommates is being shady regarding rent payments in the future, and another hasn’t even gotten a job yet, and we need to have $650 by May 31^st. I’m afraid that, since I’m the only one with a steady income, I’ll be paying the bills for the next month all on my own—which is already stressful because I’ve lost $600 due to a twist of misfortune.

 

I told Mandy I was stressing out about all this, and she reminded me that everything would be okay, that God would take care of everything, that He would provide for us. Our God is named El-Shaddai, the God who is sufficient and who provides for His people. Today I’m going to talk to the landlord and get the full scoop. I’m going to try to talk him into letting us move in, at the least, on Saturday. Saturday we’d be able to get all our things in except for the fact that my dad is in a race Saturday (he races every weekend), so he wouldn’t be able to help (apparently races are more important than moving). 

the 15th week

So ADORABLE!

Monday. I woke absolutely sick—dizziness, migraine, sweats and shivers. I had to leave Genesis 1-11 to throw up in the bathroom. I slept until my shift at the Hilltop. I was feeling good enough to visit Mandy in IT, and she said she wanted to hang out. So we hung out in Student Life late into the night.

Tuesday. I moved forward and sat next to Mandy in Romans. She liked me sitting beside her. It’s my new “assigned seat.” I worked till 1:00 and then went to Geology. Jess Lynn called me and said she was on campus at the Hilltop, so I went to see her and she wouldn’t even acknowledge me. Weird. Mandy and I went to The Blind Lemon at Mount Adams and then to Applebee’s. She was playful and flirty again, but I’m thinking that’s just her personality.

Wednesday. I went to Mom & Dad’s for a sort of sabbatical. I returned to Cincinnati and hung out with Stupid Farmer before going to bed.

Thursday. I went up to Reading to visit Sarah. Keith’s in jail, so she has the apartment to herself. We watched TV, ordered pizza, and played The Office Trivia Game. Ams came over. My tire went flat so I had to put on the spare.

Friday. I worked until 1:00 and boxed up some of my room. In two weeks I’ll be moving into my very own *rented* house! Mandy told me to visit her at work, so I did, and then I went to Eden Park for a bit. I spent the evening hanging out with Sarah G. and Julie B. in the Hilltop. Mandy and I did homework together, and then I headed to Mom & Dad’s.

Saturday. Mom and I went to get my flat tire patched. We had lunch at China Garden, and then we went to Hollywood Video to rent some movies. Back home we power-washed the house and decks and cleaned the windows. And I taught her how to change a tire.

Sunday. I returned to campus around 1:00 and napped until 3:30. I went to Chipotle for lunch and worked until 8:00. I spent most of the evening in the Hilltop hanging out with Jessie, Lorraine, and Sarah G. Kyle and I hung out in the dorms for a bit, and then I went to class. 

so afraid to love

I'm afraid to love.

So afraid to love.

 

Every time I love, that love is taken from me.

I pour my heart into something or someone, and that love dies.

I hold back tears and feel a knot forming in my throat.

I try to hold onto hope... but hope is so fleeting.

 

What is the point? Why love? Why give your heart to someone? Why dedicate yourself to making someone else's life better?

 

This is my experience: anytime I love someone, my love is trashed, stomped-on, cast out like garbage, spit on, mutilated, taken for granted, manipulated, and eventually scorched. Love is a painful thing for me. It feels so good, yet I always know--in the back of my mind--that things are going to bottom-out and I'll end up in the middle of a dried-up oasis, melting under the desert sun.

 

Do I need to be someone else? I'll change if I have to!

Is my character not good enough? My personality too unique?

I can change that. I'll change it, just to be loved.

 

The moment I finally reach the point where I will give my heart to something, it is taken from me--like some sort of cruel torture exacted on me by unseen forces. Can you blame me for having such difficulty in trusting in God? Can you blame me for being, at the very least, hesitant to trust God, when my dreams are given to me on a silver platter then snatched away just as I begin to thank Him for it?

 

Ams and I were talking the other day. Our lives are cyclical when it comes to these things. The moment life starts going our way, it gets pulled out from under us.

 

I try to hold onto hope. I try to keep an optimistic, positive outlook. But our life experiences shape who we are and how we perceive the world around us. I have apparently not been good enough before, and I feel like I will never be good enough. I'm too weird, too strange, whatever... But in the end, whatever title you want to give it, whatever classification you place it under, I am inadequate. I do not perform as desired. Perhaps I am too human--or too me. If I am too me, then I must change who I am.

 

I can take three routes. Either stay where I'm at, clinging to a hope even though it kills. Or I can move on, and seek another answer to my prayers. As Weatherly said, "When we think God has answer our prayers and it is revealed that what we thought was an answer to prayer actually was not, then we do not lose hope: we keep waiting." So I must wait. Or I can give up. I can hang up my coat, throw off my shoes, bury my face into my pillow, cry myself to sleep--and never wake up.

Anne Ortlund

God is at work in all the kaleidoscoping family transitions; not only in the high points but in the endings, beginning, detours, dead ends, and in-between times. His powerful tools are not just the promotions and graduations but the failures and firings and losses and sicknesses and shocks and periods of boredom. In them all He’s silently, busily, unceasingly encouraging, punishing, shaping…

 

…And during all His working—all God’s silent activity in the disappointments, surprises, delights, irritations—transformations are taking place…

 

Do you feel as if nothing is happening…? I guess so does a lobster, encased in that ridiculous armor. As he grows it even gets crowded inside. But he sheds it fourteen times during his first year of life. Each shedding takes ten days, and each time in the periods between shells—when he’s naked, exposed, vulnerable—he grows about seven percent.

 

You feel stifled, unfulfilled? You don’t know when you’ll break into change?

 

Wait for God.

Wait on God.

Wait with God.

 

Life is not fixed. Let it happen; don’t rush it… Keep your eyes fixed on God, live in obedience as you see it, and then just be there.

 

- Anne Ortlund

in search of simplicity

I want to live a life of simplicity. It's so easy to get caught up in this world...
A philosophy of simplicity. Hmmm... that sounds interesting.

"What does it mean to live simply? To live truly simply?"
"How can I live simply in the world in which I live?"
"How might false simplicity masquerade as true simplicity?"
"How can we discern true simplicity from false simplicity?"
"What role does ascetics play in simplicity? Or do they play a role at all?"

A simple life... These questions rage within me.

Simplicity is the absence of complexity.

"What makes life complex?"
"How can I discern the complexities from the simplicities?"
"If I CAN discern complexities versus simplicity...
then how do I pursue simplicity over complexity?"

It's 3:30 in the morning. It's way too late for me to be thinking about this.

I should turn off my light and go to bed.

But my mind rages:
shrieking questions
inhospitable fears
a search for something more
confusion unabated

I want my life to make sense... Am I seeking an interest in "simplicity" for the sake of ascertaining a life that makes sense? Where I can tell up from down? Where I can tell good from evil? Where I can know my own heart and my true motivations and desires? Where I can become a man of character and integrity?

There is something in the idea of a "simple life" that draws me...
Maybe it's a promise of escapism?
But would--will?--simplicity bring such an escape?
Or will I find that my problems don't just fade away into the background?

I read Walden once. Mayhaps I should pick it up again?

a good night with friends

Tonight was a great night with friends. Several of us—Julie, Sarah, David, Corie, and Brock—went to Highlands to enjoy coffee and good conversation. I love Highlands. It’s got a fantastic atmosphere, nice people, and outlets to plug in laptops—that’s always a plus. Soon it’s off to bed, and tomorrow I am boxing up my room and then returning to Cincinnati to write an exegesis paper with a friend. Oh: at Highlands I ran into Brittney, one of the girls living in the house we’re renting for the next year, and she told me that they’ve been able to move out on time—which means our move-in date is cemented as May 1^st. This time next week I’ll be lounging around in my own living room. I’m pumped.

summer is on the doorstep

Summer is almost here, and I am getting excited. I still have so much to do for school in the next three weeks (including a midterm I missed back in March). I am moving into a house with my little sister and our friend Sarah, and I suspect we will have pretty good times. I landed a job working at a Girl Scout Camp (Camp Butterworth, what a ridiculous name), and I will be able to pay my bills with ease. I told my friend Corie, “I’m not looking forward to working, but it’s a blessing to have a job with a guaranteed thirty hours a week.” Certainly an answer to prayer. Lots of my friends will be remaining in Cincinnati: Kyle, Jessie, Julie, Isaac, Amos, etc. It will be good to have people over in the evenings. I did my finances and I’ll be able to afford one visit to The Anchor every week, as well as two trips to various coffee shops or bars in the Cincinnati area (my favorites are Rohs Street, Highlands, and Sitwell’s in Clifton; and The Blind Lemon in Mount Adams). I also want to get started on an exegesis of the Corinthian Correspondance. I have finished Romans, it is excellent, I love it, but it is only the beginning: I want to write an exegesis of the entire Hauptbriefe (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, and Galatians). It is ironic that Romans is probably the easiest one out of them all to do!

 

I am sitting at home in Dayton, but I am returning to Cincinnati tonight. Several of us—Julie, Brock, Corie, Mandy, Sarah, and David—are going to Highlands tonight to have a good time. Tomorrow I am writing an exegesis of a pericopae of The Gospel of Mark. Sunday I am preaching at Kyle’s church: “Musar: When God Disciplines His Children.” I’m pretty excited. I love teaching/preaching. I wrote most of the sermon this morning at The Anchor, where I had not only coffee but also eggs, toast, and bacon; the pretty waitress told me, “You’re eating today? I’m shocked!” Here is a scripture that I have really been thinking about lately:

 

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. – James 4.7-10, E.S.V.

disconnected living

I went to The Anchor tonight with a friend of mine. He is really struggling with some sin in his life, and he has undergone discipline from God (our conversation helped spawn the sermon). He made the comment, “I am so rotten, so wretched, so despicable.” I glared at him, said, “Shut up. You’re not. You are in Christ. You are holy. You are righteous. You are innocent.” He protested, pointing at areas in his life where he was dealing with sin. I told him, “Read Romans 6-8. Some of the Christians in Rome believed that because they were in Christ, they could live however they wanted. In Romans 6, Paul tells them that because they are in Christ, they are redeemed from sin, and that they are to live holy lives. In Romans 7, Paul describes the man who is outside of Christ, enslaved to sin and unable to please God. In Romans 8, Paul describes the man who is in the Spirit, the man who is in Christ, the man who is no longer enslaved to sin but filled with the Spirit of God. The Romans were living as if they were enslaved to sin when they were actually filled with the Spirit of God. That’s you, my friend: living in sin even though you are a child of God. You need to repent.” I have learned that it is good for a friend to rebuke a friend, that it is a sign of great brotherly friendship; my best friend Kyle rebukes me often, and I appreciate that about our friendship. 

a lesson learned

On Tuesday night I gave the devotional for the south side of the dorm building. I spent hours working on it, practiced in front of friends, felt confident in my ability to carry it through. Before devos started, I prayed that God would speak through me. When the time came for me to give the lesson, I was unable to recall all that I had planned, and I was left scatterbrained and disoriented and fumbling around in the dark like a blind caveman. I kept looking back to one of my friends who just kept giving me this What in the world are you doing?! look, which didn’t help. I felt everyone’s eyes drilling into me, perceiving my failure, and I heard the illusions of their mockery and ridicule. As I returned to my room, I told one of my friends, “I don’t know what happened.” He told me, “Neither do I. You’re one of the best speakers I know, so what happened tonight… I can’t explain it either.” Mad at myself, disappointed in myself, I went to bed and tried to avoid everyone who was present for the devotional. I was ashamed of myself.

Today, I have had three people tell me that the devotional was excellent. One person told me that it was his favorite devotional all year.

And I am left thinking, “How?”

And a scripture passage comes to mind.

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom… And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. – 1 Cor 2.1, 3-5

In Paul’s day, a person’s message was deemed valid only if it was eloquent, well-crafted, and lofty. A good message was a message that was filled with the power of the tongue. Paul was “unskilled” in his preaching, coming not with eloquence but with a simple declaration: Christ crucified (verse 2). While the validity of a message was determined, in Greco-Roman culture, by the way in which the message was delivered, Paul writes that the validity of his message came by the Spirit of God and the power of God working through his words.

Before the presentation of my devotional, I prayed that God would speak to me. If God were to speak through me, I expected, then He would grant me eloquence, well-craftedness, and lofty words of wisdom. God did speak through me, but not the way I expected. He took a scatterbrained, disoriented, fumbling fool such as myself and spoke through my discombobulated words. He convicted and encouraged through what I said, and He did not need primp and pomp to do it.

There is a lesson in all this. I must not rely upon my own abilities; rather, I must acknowledge that my abilities are nothing and rely not on myself but upon God using a foolish vessel like me to advance His kingdom. 

tonight's devo: Rom 12.12

I am going to talk about suffering. If you’ll recall, last time I spoke, I talked about suffering, too; you may be wondering if I am sort of sadist. Maybe—or perhaps I am simply in league with the biblical tradition. Our Bibles are chocked full of stories about suffering, and it has been said that the majority of the Bible was written amidst suffering or describes events of suffering. Many Christians—even well-meaning Christians—seek to candy-coat suffering, paper over suffering, or pretend that suffering isn’t real—or, at least, not as real as it seems to be. But God, in His Word, demands that we look square in the eyes the reality of suffering, and acknowledge suffering as real. Last time I spoke I gave my personal testimony; this week I’m going to be exploring the question, “How are Christians to live amidst suffering?” I am speaking solely from experience, and what I’m talking about today are things that have helped me amidt my suffering.

Romans 12.9-13 is what is called a paraenesis, a series of ethical injunctions strung together with no solid framework. One of the theories presented by scholars is that the exhortations in these verses were classic Christian “phrases” or “clichés” that Paul reiterates to the church in Rome. Just as they were clichés then, so they are now. But here’s the thing about clichés: they’re usually true. These phrases become cliché because people acknowledge their validity and speak them often. You don’t have to agree with that assessment, but let’s find middle-ground and acknowledge biblical clichés as true (or we can become liberal heretics). It is within this paraenesis that Paul writes Romans 12.12:

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

The foundation of this phrase, I believe, is Tribulation, and in the midst of Tribulation, the Christian is to be prayerful, patient, and hopeful. But let’s first define what Tribulation means. Tribulation here does not mean the future Seven-Year Period of God’s Judgments that many Christians believe to be an eschatological reality. Tribulation, also, is not referring specifically to persecutions (it is tempting to super-spiritualize Tribulation into persecution, but the context here does not imply it). Tribulations are simply afflictions or adversities. They are tough times, and these tough times come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. They can be financial, emotional, physical. It is amidst these very real afflictions that Christians are to be prayerful, patient, and hopeful.

Amidst the afflictions that plague us, whatever they might be, we are to be Prayerful. “Why?” It is by prayer that we focus our attention and trust upon God rather than upon our affliction. It is by prayer that we pray for deliverance, and it is prayer that sustains us to be patient.

Just as we are to pray amidst affliction, we are to be patient in our waiting for deliverance. Patience is, ultimately, waiting; but it is not a passive waiting. It is an aggressive waiting. Patience is persevering when the road is long and dark and slow. There are two keys to patience: acceptance and faith. In patience we accept things as they are, and in patience we have faith that they will not always be as they are. To be patient is to hope, for the patient person waits for something, and that object for which he waits is the hope that, along with prayer, sustains their patience as they await deliverance.

Tertullian, an early Christian most known for coming up with the original “Trinity” doctrine, said that “Hope is patience with the lamp lit.” The patient person knows what he hopes for, and that hope gives light to why he should be patient. It has been said that man can live 40 days without food, three days without water, eight minutes without air, and just one second without hope. This is because hope is what keeps us alive amongst affliction. Hopelessness breeds suicide; hope breeds endurance—and for the Christian, it breeds joy, because of the certainty of hope. We have the assurance that our hope is real, as Hebrews 11.1 tells us. “What is it that we hope for?” As I said last time I spoke, the hope of the Christian is founded upon the “Glory of God”, a Jewish phrase which depicted a restored Eden where God’s chosen people would dwell in God’s eschatological victory. This concept of a restored Edenic paradise that is the future for the people of God was carried into Christian eschatology, and the early Christians placed their hope in a new heavens and a new earth (2 Pet 3.13 and Rev 21). It is hope in this future reality that gives us endurance and joy amidst our afflictions. It is the conviction—no, the promise—that things will not always be this way that enables us to endure our afflictions and even find joy amidst them.

Prayer. Patience. Hope.

These are to be the characteristics of the Christian who is afflicted.

I don’t know how many of us in this room are currently suffering. I don’t know what problems and afflictions are being experienced by those of us gathered here tonight. But this is what I do know: that if you are not suffering now, you will suffer, and perhaps even soon. In the thick of suffering, prayer and patience and hope seem ridiculous and absurd, but this is a great irony: because they are exactly what we need to put into practice. Suffering is a trademark of this fallen world, but those of us who belong to God can, unlike the heathen, be patient with purpose and find joy in the midst of our suffering. 

Questions: #1

What is one thing you have learned about yourself recently?

I am self-reliant to a fault. Somewhere in my mind, I get this idea—perhaps stemming from pride—that I can do things on my own, that I don’t need anyone’s fault. Now, I know that I need God to help me through difficult times, and I need Him for my salvation, etc. But when it comes to other people, I have this feeling that if I ask for help with my needs—whether they be emotional, physical, financial, whatever—then I am transgressing some unwritten code. So when it comes to difficult times in my life, it’s just me and God, and I generally don’t let anyone help me in to help bear the load. There are exceptions to this rule, like my sister, and Kyle, and Jessie. But generally-speaking, that’s the way it is. It can be a dangerous and even deadly thing.

I am also blunt and honest to a fault. When I want to know something, I ask. I don’t sugar-coat what I ask. When someone asks me a question, I answer as honestly and bluntly as I can. This gets me in a lot of trouble; for example, when I am to be showing someone sympathy or empathy, I often just piss them off with cold and calculating words. This has happened quite often recently.

Both of these—self-reliance and being blunt and honest—are things I need to work on. More-so the self-reliance, but I need to learn when and when not to be blunt. Honesty is great, but when it is performed bluntly, people just get hurt.

velociraptor awareness day

Yesterday was velociraptor awareness day. I hit the deck and stayed on my toes, refusing to be caught unawares.

As Dan Dyke put it: “There are only a few things in this world terrify me, and one of them is the thought of living in a world with velociraptors.”